


The Voicemail

by veryconfidentsandwichshapedfreedom



Category: Divergent - All Media Types, Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Dates, Awkward Romance, Break Up, Cinnamon Roll Myra, Comfort, Crack Relationships, F/F, First Dates, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Molly "on my way to steal yo girl" Atwood, Social Anxiety, Stalking, Vegetarians & Vegans (if you squint), Voicemail, Wish Fulfillment, not sure if one-shot, tl;dr Molly is nice when she's trying to get laid, well i mean the hurt already happened so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 06:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11617761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veryconfidentsandwichshapedfreedom/pseuds/veryconfidentsandwichshapedfreedom
Summary: After a harsh breakup with her high school sweetheart that leaves Myra an emotional wreck, she's certain she'll never love again, but someone's ready to give her a push.





	The Voicemail

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: i accidentally posted this before it was done by falling asleep with my phone and hitting the button and was saved from embarrassment only by the fact that no one cared enough to read it
> 
> fun fact 2: im still not convinced i finished this because i still want death for writing a crack pairing this intensely insane and i think i fell in love with molly years ago and didnt realize it until i threw her on a lesbian date

_"Hey. You'll probably delete this, as I am sure you did with all the others, but I decided I would try again anyway. I am very sorry. I love you, Myra. I love you more than I can express to you in any form. I never meant to hurt you by doing what I did. I understand if you don't want to, but I urge you to give me another chance, because I swear, I will never fuck up like that again. Please, Sweet, you have gotten me to resort to begging you now, and—"_

The low beep that cuts off Edward's rambling, incoherent voicemail means as much to me as what he had said. He doesn't deserve my forgiveness. No matter how many times he calls me to fill up my voicemail box with longwinded pleas, and no matter how many texts I come back to after charging my phone, he'll never deserve it.

But that doesn't mean I don't sympathize with him. Try as I might to feel nothing, to make him a stranger in my mind and emotionally disconnect from all we shared, it's just not the type of person I am. I'm too sentimental and too obsessive and I can't help but feel bad for leaving him, like I've lost a part of myself.

In a way, I have. Edward and I had been dating since our sophomore year of high school. The last three years of my life were lived for him and him alone. He was my rock, my only support during the most confusing time of my development, a time that can inspire so much while creating so little. He kept me stable, provided me with a consistent source of companionship, of comfort. For longer than I would like to admit to myself, I fantasized about marrying him, about buying a house, about having kids and watching them grow up and growing old ourselves, always together and never apart.

Even when we went our separate ways to go to college, him two thousand miles away to attend San Diego State University, with me staying in our home city, at the University of Illinois, he promised to stay faithful. He told me he'd always love me, that I meant everything to him, that he could be on another planet and the distance would still mean nothing. That after we graduated, he wanted to marry me and live our lives together. At that time, I believed him. I had given him more and more until he had everything, so distrusting him was to distrust myself.

It broke me when he confessed only three months after he left that he'd dropped out of college to join a street gang. I swore that I loved him unconditionally from the moment we met, and yet, I found myself loathing what he'd become, what he aspired to be. I remember crying into the phone when he told me that he'd shot a man, that he dealt drugs, that he wanted to strike fear into the hearts of everyone who had ever dared to hurt him, that he wanted his new city hiding beneath prayers and fear and death.

I understood Edward's lust for control, his powerhungry ambitions, in the same way that I understand people choosing to eat meat. It is pleasurable for them. They like the feelings it evokes. But it hurts others. It is immoral, and I cannot imagine doing it. That meant that I could not imagine standing by his side. His destiny and mine were no longer compatible, and it would be more tortuous for us both to remain there when my love for him had all but died completely.

I broke it off over a text a few days later, unwilling to even hear him speak. I couldn't bear to know him, to remember his face, his eyes and how they were always glimmering with limpid blue specks of determination, and the feel of his rough, calloused hand in mine. I couldn't bear to remember that he existed. Until he started leaving the voicemail, exposing me to his voice until it seemed to occupy more of my hearing than silence ever did, even the thought of him talking made me sick to my stomach.

It's been a month since we split, now, and he still calls at least twice a day begging for me to take him back. I have not responded once.

I sigh, deep and refreshing. For once, I feel as if I've gotten rid of him, though I know that it's just an automatic response to the satisfaction of watching my phone delete his voicemail. It seems as if the device itself has dominance over him, that it can manipulate his communication, censor what he does or says; considering the fact that he's left me messages that were little more than his sexual fantasies mumbled into a cell phone, I wish that were the case, that there really were some little creature hovering above him, palm spread to smack him in the nose whenever he's about to say something annoying or stupid or wrong. 

At the same time, I'd pity that poor thing, though; it'd be the most overworked being to ever breathe air.

I press the button along the rim of the case that mutes my phone and lay it back on the counter, screen to wood. If he texts me, I can't see the glaring lights of my notifications reflecting on the ceiling, like an overhead projector displaying every mistake I've ever made right in the middle of my apartment.

For weeks now, I have been nothing but a tangled knot of stress. I notice now when my fingers  _aren't_  trembling, and when my heart  _isn't_ fluttering in my chest, cast into an endless race of agony as it struggles to provide enough blood to maintain my fear-stricken body. Now is one of those fabled times, where I'm allowed to forget Edward. Usually, the only time I feel comfortable is in class, with my phone off and locked in my dorm, or while I'm sleeping, exempt from pestering by the most basic definition of the term, at least until I wake up to find that the world is still a sinful realm of evil beings and their atrocity offspring.

I'm going to be at peace for the next fifteen minutes, which I assume is how long it'll take for Edward to call me so many times that my phone vibrates off the countertop and shatters, an explosion of glass and metal, snuffing out memories in one fell swoop. I might as well organize some time to myself, in the meantime. It's all I ever seem to have going for me.

It's not like I have friends. Edward didn't really like anyone I knew back in high school, so I quit hanging out with my old friends when we started dating, and now I haven't spoken to them in years. That experience carved me into submissive shyness that keeps me from initiating relationships. I am stationary because of Edward. I fell under his curse of silence. Now all I have to give myself even a bit of pleasure is the freedom of the blackness of my thoughts.

I'm about to lie down on the couch when I hear a rhythmic rumbling, like something hard and hollow tapping against wood. A knock at the door? It couldn't be. I don't know anyone, much less have anyone I'm expecting. I abandon my activity and dart for the door.

"Coming!" I yell, though I'm unsure why. It hasn't been more than a couple of seconds since I was caught by the noise, and I don't even know who it is. Maybe things are too quiet, and I'm trying to rectify that. I'm satisfied with that answer. It sounds like me. Everything has been an internal cyclone, invisible to anyone else, of confusion and anger and fear and regret since I left Edward, both too quiet, in my head, and loud enough to drown out my cries for help. After so long of that torture, the idea of speaking just to be heard is irresistible.

I'm a foot in front of the door when my hand freezes an inch away from the doorknob. I can't open the door for someone I don't know. Doing that is a terrifying thought that makes my spine feel cold.

But cold is nothing compared to this new ice, and I fear being familiar with the stranger far more than anything else. If this is Edward, flown all the way out here to yell at me and whine for my forgiveness, maybe hurt me, if I don't comply. Now I feel not only cold, but a storm of frigidity, complete with spindly shocks of lightning stretching through me, racing through my veins. I debate the idea of climbing out the window and to the street below, in a wild escape attempt that would be worth it for nothing but avoiding him.

I need to be brave. Rational thought, something that has been in high demand with only a miniscule supply for me, dictates that Edward hasn't travelled here to harass me. It's not him, and whoever it is, I don't need to be scared.

With that, I open the door. A loud creak lurches through the air between the stranger and me, as if to announce the resolution of my fear and the result of my choice. Light pours into the dim emptiness of my room from the hallway, a glowing, explosive bath of warmth and brightness. 

My blood courses through my aching veins in a rush of boiling lava; despite any and all logic determining it impossible, I still expect to be face-to-face with Edward, his gaze strangling mine and his icy eyes wide, round, crazed.

But all I see is a girl with a white shirt bound to the curves of her bust and the width of her hips, and a stiff blue-gray vest buttoned over it. Against her chest, balanced precariously between her arms and her torso, is a bouquet of flowers wrapped in a thin ribbon of pale fabric. She's staring at me, but not menacingly, not like Edward, but just to acknowledge that I exist. Her name's Molly, I think. She lives in the dorm at the end of the hall with her roommate, a lanky girl with short black hair and dark skin whom I don't know the name of. It has become an evening ritual to sit on the couch with a cup of fresh decaf and listen to their arguing carry through the thin walls, down the hall, and into my room, since I can't study or sleep when they're screaming at each other, anyway. 

Her expression is almost always one of scorn, like her presence in the world itself disgusts her, so she looks strange holding flowers, a symbol of compassion, of beauty, of romance, and even stranger with a meek, trembling smile crowning her disproportionate small chin. Her lips seem out of practice, like the concept of smiling is entirely foreign to her features. Maybe that's why it seems to want to break more with every passing second, just like me.

"Hey," she says. Her voice is low and nasal, but it's surprisingly soothing, in a way, when she's not using it to berate anyone with barrages of cruel remarks. "It's been a while, but I heard about your boyfriend."

A sharp pang of fear catches in my throat, a needle formed by undiluted alert sticking in my flesh. How does she know? Outside of presentations or group projects, I average a few words a day on campus, maybe one short exchange of small talk about the weather or a nondivisive news story, if someone else initiates it. No one has any way of knowing, or any reason to care that the quiet girl who is a borderline nonentity broke up with a boy who isn't even in the same state anymore, let alone the same school. 

Then I remember going outside for some air after I sent the initial text to end things with Edward. I remember Molly's roommate sitting crosslegged on the sidewalk by the door with a book clutched in her hands. She'd asked me why I was crying, when I hadn't even realized that there were tears gushing down my cheeks yet, and I had been caught too off-guard to stutter out anything but the truth, and she'd told me that she was sorry, as if it would help that she cared enough to lie when my entire existence was crumbling into dust around me, and that had been the end of it. 

Hey, at least Molly's not stalking me. Hopefully.

"Yeah," I say. I'm not sure how to reply; every response I conjure seems stiff, unnatural. I wasn't prepared for this, for someone to take interest in me.

"It's better this way, I guess. We just weren't meant for each other." I shrug, trying my hardest to seem casual, to paint a steel veneer over my agony. 

 _Is_  it better this way?

"Guys can be dicks." Molly's simper seems to imply that she knows something that I don't, and it's writhing on the tip of her tongue, longing to be released. Maybe she came just to whine to me about her own ill experiences with her past lovers, just to cheer me up. But that doesn't explain the flowers, unless she's very, very intent on befriending me, and she doesn't seem like the kind of girl to spend her valuable time meticulously rebuilding a stranger, scar by scar, doesn't seem like the kind of girl to slave for hours talking me up, telling me that I'm perfect and beautiful and that I am strong enough to get past Edward, that he never deserved me in the first place. 

I glance toward the bouquet clutched in her hands. I hadn't paid much attention to it until now. They're roses. Roses, red as a cardinal. Edward gave me roses, once, as her proposal to me for senior prom back in high school. They were red, too, the same exact shade. If Molly's giving these to me as some token of sympathy, she can take them back. They're going to do nothing but drive a stake through my heart every time I see them.

"So, uh..." I stutter. "What are the flowers for?"

Someone flicks a switch, and Molly's eyes light up, exploding into coffee colored pools of excitement. The simper blooms into a wide grin that eats up her pale face with her crooked, yellowing teeth.

"I was wondering if you were free tonight. If we could chat, or head out somewhere, or something. Get to know each other. If you're busy, I'm willing to wait."

Sparks flicker in my cheeks, catching onto the tinder of my pattering heart. Without warning, without hesitation, they erupt into a raging inferno, hot enough to scorch me until there is nothing left of me but charred black bones and flaking ash. I'm probably the same shade of scarlet as the roses, now. Molly's trying to get me out on a date. 

Does she not realize that not every girl who breaks up with her boyfriend does it because they're a closet lesbian, or is she just that complacent with her delusion of her immense universal sexual appeal? If it's the latter, her ego isn't just bloated, but morbidly obese. To most, that is a fault. To me, it is intriguing, unique. 

The world around me stumbles in place as I try to decide whether I should be flattered or terrified. There's compelling evidence for each; if there wasn't an established counterargument, an opponent, to match both sides, I could be easily swayed towards either of them.

I don't know Molly well, and she's still cultivated a crush on me, probably from looks and public demeanor alone. I've never thought of myself as a beauty, inside or out. I'm plain, small, and drab, and my personality is too timid and mousy to leave a deep impact. But here is this stranger, this background character in the novel of my life, standing here, telling me she's grown fond enough of me to desire my company, without me ever having spoken to her before. I should be flattered. Even Edward wasn't enticed into a relationship without a friendship preceding it.

But I _don't_ know Molly well. It's a double-edged sword. She could be just like Edward, lead me on, betray me, destroy me from the inside out. I should be terrified. I should tell her to leave me alone, and that her flowers are going to die in the next twenty-four hours anyway.

I remind myself that all she's asking for is a date. Not physical contact, not an emotional connection, not a relationship. She wants to have coffee or go to dinner or take a walk in the park for one night of my life, not commit herself to me, start plotting a future together, and become more of me than she is herself.

It's just some fun to get my mind off him.

"Actually," I say. Even the single word is hard to force out. My inhibitions have built a wall over my mouth, preventing anything from escaping properly. I plead to myself to change my mind and reject her. It's fast, it's easy, it's one short word. No.

"I'd love to."

Dang it.

The flowers are passed to me while I'm too stunned to move; I support them in both hands, in a contrived way, drawn up against my sternum in a perfect mirror of how Molly held them, as if I'm a robot engineered to mimic human motion.

Sometimes I feel so numb I wonder if I'm only that. A robot.

"Well," she says matter-of-factly, with a light air that conveys both a stern faith in her decision and amusement. "These are yours, then."

She's still smiling, and judging by the glow in her dark eyes, it's at me, not with me. I notice that one of her two front teeth is rotated toward the tip of her tongue. The other is diagonal in its positioning from the roots. Both are too long for her mouth.

I smile back, unsure of what else to do. I try to summon the combined knowledge of every romance novel I've ever read, hoping to convert cliches and idealized male characters made of muscles and masculinity into gasoline to power my interaction. It results in nothing but the realization that fictional depictions of romance are pathetic and unrealistic, and completely, utterly, and entirely useless.

"I'd love to..." I draw into silence for emphasis. "But I—I have a five thousand word essay due tomorrow— it's on my load of laundry downstairs, and I—" 

I'm an idiot.

A lighthearted chuckle rises in Molly's throat. It's trailed by a snort, evident even in the fleeting brievity of it all. Her laugh is as strange as she is.

"You have no friends and you're not busy. Just come on. I know you want to."

It closes the conversation. To say anything more to someone this headstrong is futile.

I might as well humor her. It's just one time, and if I hate her, I never have to speak to her again. Besides, I might actually enjoy myself, for the first time in far too long. I'm lonely, and bored with myself and my company, and upset by the outcome of my life. This is all I need. Maybe I can get my mind off Edward, even if it's just for an evening.

I settle one hand around the fabric wrap of the bouquet, still held against my body, and put my other over hers. Her hands are bigger than mine, which was to be expected, because she's the better part of a foot taller than me, but everything fits perfectly under my palm, like her fingers and knuckles and wrist were specially designed to fit with my own.

"Okay," I say. 


End file.
